Letters Make Sounds
Reading begins with a small secret. Every letter you see on a page is really a sound your mouth already knows how to make. The English letter B is the sound at the start of bus. The Urdu letter ب is the same sound at th…
There is more than one way to understand this. If you have only been taught one, you have been taught less than you deserve.
There is more than one way to understand this. If you have only been taught one, you have been taught less than you deserve.
Reading begins with a small secret. Every letter you see on a page is really a sound your mouth already knows how to make. The English letter B is the sound at the start of bus. The Urdu letter ب is the same sound at the start of بس. Your mouth does not change between the two languages. Only the shape on the paper changes.
Try this with your mouth, not your eyes. Say ma. Now say ma again. That is the sound of M in English and the sound of م in Urdu. Two letters, one sound. You already own the sound. Now you are just learning two faces for it.
Some sounds belong to only one language. Urdu has ٹ and ڈ and ڑ. These are sounds you make with your tongue curled up to the top of your mouth. English does not have a letter for them. English has TH in the word think, which Urdu does not write with one letter. That is fine. Each language keeps a few sounds for itself.
Before you finish today, play one game. Walk through your house. Touch five things. Say the first sound of each thing in Urdu, then in English. Pani, water. Roti, bread. Darwaza, door. Kitab, book. Pankha, fan. Five sounds in each language is a good day's work for a young reader.
Today's habit. Before you sleep, say three sounds out loud. Pick any three letters, English or Urdu, you saw today. Say each sound. Find one thing in your room that begins with that sound. This is how reading actually starts: not with a book in your lap, but with sounds in your mouth and eyes that begin to look for them.
Estimated time: 12 min